Beyond the Hills
by Hylian Moon
Summary: Elanor reflects as her father leaves Middle-earth as the last of the Ring-bearers.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Lord of the Rings or any of its characters.

-Tinwetari

**Beyond the Hills**

Elanor's arm was wrapped around her father's as though she was a young hobbit again, clinging on to him as he led her to the fields to see the first of the spring flowers bloom.

She took a delight in the mixture of colors that lay like a blanket across the Shire. A bubble of laughter would erupt in her throat until she was giggling out loud and tugging at her father's hand to run with her.

She circled around a bed of flowers, letting her skirt twirl as the young often in their utmost happiest state. Her eyes scanned the countryside and back at her father, who stood behind her.

"Where are the elanor flowers?" The three-year-old hobbit asked him with earnest innocence.

Samwise Gamgee knelt down beside her and brushed back a curl on her golden head. "You can't find flowers like those around here." He said to her. "They grow in a place far away where great trees stand with stems of grey."

"I would like to visit that place," Elanor said, smiling up at her father.

Sam smiled back and tugged a curl. "Someday," he said, "I will take you there."

Elanor's eyes began to glisten as she thought about those times long ago spent with her father. He was old now, past one hundred, and needed her support to help him walk across the field.

The September Sun shone down on the green grass of the Tower Hills, now vacant of any flower left over from the following summer, which was indeed a melancholy season. The death of Rose Cotton brought about a change in old Master Sam. He saw his own days limited, and knew he had accomplished enough.

It was now his time.

Sam stopped as they reached the foot of the hills that rolled ever Westward. Elanor watched quietly as he pulled out a familiar leather-bound book from inside his coat. She had seen this book many times as a hobbit growing up, for her father would read from it, telling her and her siblings tales of wizards, elves, and men that accompanied him at one point or another to a great mountain of fire.

When she became older she began to realize that the stories her father would tell were not simple tales for the young, but of the past, something her father always wanted to hold on to.

"Frodo once told me," her father began, looking down at what he held, "that I was to carry on the tradition of writing adventures of the hobbit-folk." He took his daughter's hand in his own and gave the book to her. His fingers were rough and calloused from all those years spent in his beloved garden. "I trust that you will carry on with these stories."

Elanor realized that her face was streaked with tears. She hugged the Red Book close to her body and looked at her father. His face was withered with creases of laughter and merriment that he had gained during his long years living as Mayor of the Shire. The hair on his head was grey and still curled down over his forehead and past his ears. His eyes sparkled now at Elanor, and it held no sadness whatsoever.

Her heart twisted with something that she recognized as grief, but she knew that it extended beyond that. It confused her, but she understood it just the same. This was meant to happen all along. Her father always knew he would someday leave.

_This must have been what he felt when Frodo sailed away,_ Elanor thought to herself.

That was more than sixty years ago, but she knew her father still felt the emptiness after the loss of the hobbit whose friendship had endured through the most perilous of times. Sam had lived a plentiful life as Frodo told him he would, but those days had passed, and it was now his children's turn to live in the same blissfulness that he had been blessed with.

Sam began walking again and Elanor stepped out to help him, but he shook his head. " I must continue on to the Grey Havens alone." He saw the hurt in his daughter's eyes and smiled. "I must do this on my own, for you have lead me here far enough and must continue on with other things. Take heart, my little Elanor, and live your life in happiness."

"Do you think you will see him there?" Elanor asked him, as she wiped the tears away, promising herself that she would cry no more.

"Maybe," his father replied, his eyes became distant and the wrinkles beside them were visible. Whether he was able to picture Frodo in the Undying Lands or not, she wasn't sure. "In some way or another, I will."

With those words he continued walking pass the hills, leaving his daughter behind. Elanor watched as the old hobbit carried himself with the strength he had left away from the Shire and soon from Middle-earth forever. He became a speck in the distance until he disappeared entirely.


End file.
